Why I Didn't Wait

A friend on facebook, posted a link to a blog post that struck me deeply and personally. The blog is called "Grace for the Road" and the post was about the turmoil of waiting for the husband every girl was promised as a young woman.

I want to pull a few quotes and comment:

"It’s a graveyard of hearts, this place where single church girls crash into their late 20s and early 30s. Churches see the symptoms. They scramble to reach out to the ever-growing young adult singles crowd who feels alienated by family-oriented services."

   Church used to be a safe place to be. Its where I was able to visit family, impress the older members with all the exciting accomplishment in my life, and hangout with friends with whom i would make exciting plans for the next week. It was a safe place with relevant lesson topics for my life.
   Then in college, I was in student wards comprised completely of single people all in my age bracket and on the same life course I was. And if the emphasis of the activities was a bit heavy on the concept of "find a mate and get married" oh well. The boys were cute and fun to flirt with anyway.
   But as soon as I graduated and moved home, church became a very different place. Suddenly the older ladies seemed less interested in my life and more nosy. Their questions about what I was doing with my life, and was I dating anyone became painful. Gradually as the years passed the questions faded and have become replaced by looks of pity and stilted suggestions on where, how, when to meet single LDS guys, or worse, for ways to fill all that free time I have since I don't have a husband and children to take care of.
    Meetings are long, painful, inapplicable repetitions on being a good mother, a supportive wife, on preparing your home, attending the temple, etc. It's hard to be a good wife when you don't even know any single men, let alone one who would have you. And the crop of local, attractive, single LDS guys who are old enough for this 25yr old in my area is barren.

"There are a lot of girls out there who don’t know who God is anymore – the God of their youth group years just isn’t working out. Back then, that God said to wait for sex until they are married, until He brings the right man along for a husband. They signed a card and put it on the altar and pledged to wait. And wait they did....And waited and waited and waited.
   Some of them have prayed their whole lives for a husband, and he hasn’t shown up. They’ve heard the advice to “be the woman God made you to be, focus on that, and then the husband will come.” They’ve read “Lady in Waiting,” gotten super involved in church and honed their domestic skills.
   And still they wait.

   More than a decade ago, a youth leader handed them a photocopied poem in Sunday School written to them from “God” that said, “The reason you don’t have anyone yet is because you’re not fully satisfied in Me. You have to be satisfied with Me and then when you least expect it, I’ll bring you the person I meant for you.”"

 But many of them – if they’re honest – will tell you that time has passed, and it’s wrecking their view of God. If this is who God’s supposed to be, then He’s tragically late. So some decide to chuck “Lady in Waiting” out the window … and possibly their virginity with it. Church goes next. God might go next, too. If He doesn’t answer these prayers after they’ve held up their end of the bargain, why would He answer any others?"

 This has been the battle I've waged over the past 4 years. I never consciously diagnosed what went wrong or when it happened. But somewhere along the way I became disheartened, disenchanted, and disillusioned. I quit going to church, I began making choices that robbed me of spiritual sensitivity

Quotes taken from http://gracefortheroad.com/2012/02/03/idontwait/